Government sources have admitted that they are considering overhauling UK trespass laws to make it easier to extract shale gas. Under the plans being considered by the government, fracking could take place under homes without owners’ permission.

The government sources say they are mulling over these amendments
to the law to make it easier for companies to explore and extract
shale gas, amid worries that landowners and other parties could
hold up energy companies in costly and lengthy court proceedings,
the
Telegraph reports.

The plans are expected to be published in the coming months, and
are likely to be the most controversial yet in Prime Minister
David Cameron’s plans to push through fracking regardless of the
environmental cost.

Under the current laws, companies need permission from all the
landowners beneath whose land they drill. As shale gas
exploration often involves drilling down vertically and out
horizontally for more than a mile, this can mean that several
landowners are involved.

If permission is not given, then the energy company is committing
trespass and the company would have to take the landowner to
court, which would then rule if they should be awarded drilling
rights and how much compensation should be paid to the landowner.

While compensation is often only a minimal amount, less than
£100, companies fear that court proceedings could be costly and
drawn out by years of appeals. They have been lobbying the
government to change the law.

Unsurprisingly, given how close the government and the energy
companies are on shale gas, the Department of Energy and Climate
Change (DECC) has confirmed they are looking at whether the
current laws are “fit for purpose.”

Greenpeace has tried to use the existing law to encourage
thousands of landowners in areas known to be rich in shale gas to
decline their permission for fracking to take place. Landowners
could also take out injunctions, which would present a further
barrier to companies.

One option the government could take is to introduce a compulsory
purchase regime, similar to what is already in place for
companies needing to lay pipelines underground.

“All options are on the table. It would be difficult to
implement a regime that removed any kind of compensation. You
could change the rules so you have a de facto right, but then you
have to pay. The compensation could be less than £100,” a
Whitehall source said.

Even if the trespass law was changed, companies would still need
to negotiate access rights for the drilling site, planning
permission from the local council, and other permissions from the
government and environmental regulators.

“Shale gas and oil operations that involve fracking in wells
drilled over a mile down are highly unlikely to have any
discernible impacts closer to the surface,” said a spokesman
for the DECC.

But environmental groups, as well as many residents in areas
which have been earmarked for fracking disagree. They argue that
the health and environmental effects are very damaging and
include earth tremors, water pollution and human exposure to
highly toxic chemicals used in the process.

Fracking or hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, sand and
chemicals down a well at high pressure to fracture rocks and then
extract the gas trapped within them.It has been linked to health
and environmental damage in some US states where it is extensive.

Ian
Crane, a former oil executive, who is now a campaigner
against fracking, explained to RT the extreme dangers that shale
gas exploration poses to a densely populated country like the UK.

“We’ve seen the effects in places like Colorado and southern
Queensland in Australia. When the population density of the UK is
20 times that of Colorado and 100 times that of Queensland, I
would simply implore people to do a bit of research and look at
the damage and the contamination that has been wreaked in these
locations around the world,” he said.

He also pointed out that of the four wells drilled in the UK,
seismic events have occurred at two of them, and there is a very
real chance that people in areas where fracking is taking place
will no longer have access to safe and clean water.